Ichiro proving doubters wrong

Updated 10:00 pm, Monday, August 30, 2004

Bless me, Ichiro, for I have sinned.

I thought you were losing it.

Upon further review, I was the one losing it.

Two months ago I wrote a satirical piece about this season's awful Seattle Mariners' slide and had the temerity to suggest Ichiro Suzuki was no longer fun to watch. His batting average had plummeted to -- egads! -- a mere .314 in two weeks' time.

He was looking absolutely mortal at the plate. The torpor running rampant in the clubhouse seemed to have enveloped even No. 51.

Since the column appeared, he has added 55 points to his average, batting .444 in an eight-week span.

Amazing.

I'd like to take credit, but I've yet to complete the Bret Boone Ego Inflation correspondence course, so I doubt it's any of my doing.

Either way, as his batting average hovers near .370, Ichiro has newspaper columnizers and radio chattererboxes reviving speculation about whether a major league ballplayer can hit .400 for a full season.

Teddy Ballgame will probably thaw out before that happens again, but if it does, I'm persuaded Ichiro will be involved.

I'm also convinced the Mariners' demise has only strengthened his resolve to give the fans something to cheer, some reason to come out to the ballpark in spite of the team's appalling record. He is a marketing person's personal savior.

As well, there's that lingering uncertainty over late-summer swoonage the past two years. Having hit only .256 over the final two months of last season, and .266 over the final two months the season before, Ichiro must have wondered how and why the spirit of Jay Buhner would choose to invade his body in August and September.

Clearly, the no-invading sign is out this year.

Assuming it stays out and Ichiro continues hitting in the .450 range for September, he'll end the season over .380 -- the highest American League batting average since George Brett's .390 in 1980.

Reaching a season mark of .400, however, will require an unconscious September -- something in the neighborhood of a .590 pace over the final 32 games.

I suspect it won't happen.

Then again, I could be wrong. Again.

For I don't believe we've seen everything Ichiro is capable of.

As the Orioles' Melvin Mora, his closest pursuer in the batting race, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently: "He's the best player in baseball. What can I tell you? He's smart, he can hit, run, throw, defend, everything. He's the best. How can you compete with this guy?"

Good question. I don't know the answer, but a book by Narumi Komatsu, published in Japan two years ago, will come out in the United States next month, and it may shed a little more light on the Mariners' most value-added player.

Komatsu's book, "Ichiro on Ichiro," is simply a series of long question-and-answer sessions with the Mariners star. The U.S. version, published by Seattle's Sasquatch Books, includes updates through last season.

Komatsu asks a lot of fawning questions, but every now and then he elicits some remarkable responses.

My favorite dates back to Ichiro's first season in Seattle. Komatsu asked Ichiro about his first major league home run, which he hit on April 6, 2001, against the Texas Rangers.

Unlike most home run hitters, who almost always say they were just trying to make good contact, Ichiro said: "Of course I was trying to hit it. Almost 100 percent of my home runs are ones where I'm aiming to hit a home run."

Amazing.

Ichiro clearly thinks about what he does more deeply than most American athletes, who often are told by their coaches and mentors not to "overthink" a situation.

In 2000, his last season in Japan, Ichiro flirted with a .400 average before finishing the season at .387, and he admits pursuing the goal at the time.

"I set out to get as close to .400 as I could," he told Komatsu. "Finally, I felt everything I needed to do to achieve that level was in place. I felt that if I was able to make contact with 60 to 70 percent of the strikes thrown to me, hitting .400 wasn't out of the realm of possibility."

Amazing.

However, Ichiro doesn't try to guess what pitch is coming. He doesn't see much point in it.

"Gambling everything on being able to read what kind of pitch is coming means there's a high chance you'll be wrong, so it's risky. ... I'm only about 30 percent conscious of the type of pitch. The other 70 percent I'm concentrating on picking up the ball as an object, no matter what kind of pitch it is or course it takes."

Amazing.

Ichiro thinks any team that embraces the mental aspect of the game the way he does will succeed beyond the likely -- though not guaranteed -- accomplishments ascribed to great physical prowess.

"The physical level of the game here is quite high, but for me there exists a whole mental, strategic side of the game. ... If you start to pay attention to this aspect of the game it's a big plus for any team. It opens up all sorts of opportunities. I'd love for the Mariners to be that kind of team."

I have a feeling the Mariners haven't jumped on board Ichiro's plane, if you get my draft.